Marco Arment: "Everyone should play by the same rules. A proposal: storage capacities referenced or implied in the names or advertisements for personal computers, tablets, and smartphones should not exceed the amount of space available for end-user installation of third-party applications and data, after enough software has been installed to enable all commonly advertised functionality. With today's OSes, iPads could advertise capacities no larger than 12, 28, 60, and 124 GB and the Surface Pros could be named 23 and 83 GB." Wholly agreed. When I buy a box of 100 staples, I expect it to contain ~100 staples - not 50 because the other 50 are holding the box together.

It's a PERFECT comparison... unless you're suggesting I don't own the OS or apps or data on my own harddrive.

My comparison is the items you NEED for proper usage of something take space from the whole, whether it be apps on a computer, or the washing machine in my house.

I can replace the OS on a computer/tablet, or use fewer apps if I want more space, much like I can get rid of the sofa or get a smaller chest if I want more room in my house.

No it isn't. The advertised space of the house you buy is used almost exclusively for storing furniture YOU WANT. You can choose whether or not to install furniture, you might instead choose to fill your house entirely with jelly beans.

If you want to persist with the (wrong) analogy of a house. It would be the same as if you bought a 100sqm house, only to find that the sewerage pipes protrude from the wall and took up 30sqm, leaving only 70sqm available for furniture.

No you are wrong. Petruding pipes would be some sort of hardware limitation. The furniture you don't want belongs to your girlfriend. Either you accept the situation or you get rid of her so you can replace her stuff with free and open furniture.

Furniture is most often NECESSARY, not wanted. For example, I don't WANT a washer or dryer... they are NECESSARY unless I wish to spend more money and time at a laundromat. I don't want a big dresser, but it's necessary for holding my clothes. I don't want a big OS, but depending on the device, I need it to do the work I need on the device.

I don't see why a couple of you can't see that this analogy is near perfect. Guess you don't do your own laundry, put your clothes away when they're clean, cook your own food, etc. When you move to your own place and start doing all this yourself, you'll finally understand what I'm talking about.

For a desktop computer perhaps, but when it comes to phones and tablets where storage space is a LARGE factor in what model you buy then it becomes a must. If microsoft are advertising 64GB tablets then I damn well expect it to come with close that amount of space for me to use not have over half the advertised space taken away